By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard When learning a Robert Pollard song for the first time, I’m sometimes deceived into thinking the guitar work is simpler than it really is. In the case of “Tabby And Lucy,” for example, I started out by playing the chorus with pretty standard chords: A5 – D5 […]
Tag: Boston Spaceships
John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Our Cubehouse Still Rocks On Boston Spaceships track “John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel,” Robert Pollard is once again using a guitar arpeggio—with a fretted note on the sixth string along with the open fifth, fourth, and third strings—to great effect. He combines this with a few chords, including […]
Go For The Exit
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Brown Submarine “Go For The Exit” is another great example of Boston Spaceships reworking a Robert Pollard tune from the Suitcase box set. There are no real guitar riffs to play in this song, it’s just a barrage of chords, so you’ll need to try to remember which ones go […]
Two Girl Area
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Brown Submarine “Two Girl Area” is played with just a few Floating Chord Shapes, making it a fun song to strum on guitar. There is a sprinkling of lead guitar in this song, but in this post I’ll just provide the chords so you can play the rhythm guitar. You […]
How Wrong You Are
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Zero To 99 Chris Slusarenko has talked before about how he tuned his instruments down for some of the Boston Spaceships recordings to match the pitch of the demos he received from Robert Pollard. I believe he did this again for the recording of “How Wrong You Are,” tuning the […]
Tourist UFO
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard When Robert Pollard prepared his demos for the Boston Spaceships album Let It Beard, he recorded his vocals and guitar on his boombox, then spliced sections of songs together to form a full composition. With this method in mind, I’m wondering if he ever had to actually learn […]
Earmarked For Collision
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard “Earmarked For Collision,” from the Boston Spaceships masterpiece of a double album, Let It Beard, is all about nuance. Robert Pollard uses a couple of his trusty guitar techniques to craft a song with many parts that are very similar to one another, but with subtle differences. For […]
Chevy Marigold
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard “Chevy Marigold” from the Boston Spaceships Let It Beard album is a lot of fun to play on guitar once you master the main riff. Nailing down the timing and rhythm for that part (and a couple of other parts in the song) can be a little tricky at […]
Let More Light Into The House
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard For the studio recording of “Let More Light Into The House,” fellow Boston Spaceshippers Chris Slusarenko and John Moen transformed Robert Pollard’s acoustic guitar demo into a full-on dirge; an open string drone guitar figure plods along during the first section, giving way to shuffling drums, urgent piano […]
No Steamboats
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard I’ve always considered Let It Beard to be my least favorite Boston Spaceships album. That’s not to say I never liked it, but in mental rankings it just always seemed to get bottom placement. Lately I’ve been reconsidering this evaluation, as I’ve been spending a LOT of time […]
